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Monday, December 05, 2005

Ind. Gov't. - Obtaining public information from the Indiana Economic Development Corp. [Updated]

Jennifer Whitson of the Evansville Courier& Press wrote yesterday about the status of the Evansville region in receiving state-paid economic development incentives. The story begins:

INDIANAPOLIS - The state of Indiana's lead economic development agency has given companies $165 million in state-paid incentives, but only a sliver has been spent in Southwestern Indiana, according to an analysis by the Evansville Courier & Press.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. replaced the former Department of Commerce as an economic development agency soon after Gov. Mitch Daniels took office in January. Daniels said the change will help the state focus more on luring new businesses to Indiana and helping promote expansion among existing companies.

In a separate story, Whitson wrote about the difficulty in obtaining information from the IEDC:
While Indiana Economic Development Corp. President Michael Maurer understands the need for open records when he's making deals with taxpayer money, he bemoans it.

"(Releasing deal information) creates a handicap for the state," Maurer said. He said every incentive package deal is "subject to a lot of compromise and negotiations."

When those details get printed in the paper, every subsequent company wants to start negotiations from that point or better, Maurer said.

"The way it is today, we can never get a better deal than the last deal because everybody knows what we've already compromised for," he said. "If we were in private business, those details would never be disclosed and we'd have an opportunity to negotiate a better deal."

When the Evansville Courier & Press requested a list of all finalized state incentive package offers, the IEDC turned over a list with 116 projects.

Five projects, including one in Vanderburgh County, did not include a company name. That project is slated to create 150 new jobs with an overall $36 million price tag and $2.7 million in state aid committed.

The law creating the IEDC requires the corporation to release the "terms of the final offer of public financial resources communicated by the corporation to an industrial, a research, or a commercial prospect."

Maurer said the state's offers to the five unnamed companies are final, but the project is not complete because the companies do not have signatures or other "little details."

Asked whether the names of the companies should be released because the state's offers are final, he said: "I hope not because if we released them before the company got board approval, they may not even want to negotiate with us."

This caused me to look back at the Indiana Democratic Party's open government project, which I recalled included on its list of requests this notation: "COMPLETED: Final offers of public financial resources by IEDC."

Via this earlier ILB entry, I retrieved and reviewed the open government project announcement that stated: "All requests will be posted on the party’s website, www.indems.org, and whatever documentation the party receives in response to those requests will be scanned and posted on the website."

So, was there more here than the Evansville reporter was able to obtain? No. Upon accessing the IEDC entry, I found that all that is posted is a letter from the IEDC assuring the requestor that "we will make all disclosable information covered by your request available for your review."

[Update] I'm told by Jennifer A. Wagner, Communications Director, Indiana Democratic Party that indeed there is more:

Saw your post on the IEDC stories that ran in Evansville over the weekend. The IEDC did provide all of its final offer letters; unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to scan them all in and post them on our website. I believe what Jennifer [Evansville C&P reporter, Jennnifer Whitson] requested was a database created by IEDC; I asked for the actual letters because I wanted to put together my own database. * * * We’ll have the records up and available soon.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 5, 2005 08:14 AM
Posted to Indiana Government